Mga Silingan (A Draft)

June 11, 2010
Cebu City

During a coffee break from work one day this week, I went to buy some cigarettes from the vendor of whose wares and street side talk I am a suki. Coffee is always free at the office, so apart from my own cup, I filled three other styro cups for them: one for the vendor, and two for the drunkards enjoying a bottle of Tanduay-Sprite under 4 o'clock sun down by the tree at the Salinas-Gorordo street corner.

Manong Roj was in charge of the tagay, but more interesting was their other companion who took care of that afternoon's entertainment: Fidel Inserto.

Manong 'Del, according to 'Nong Roj, was in his forties and had lost some of his marbles. That afternoon, 'Nong Del was crouched against the wall, playing the "drums".

He was holding two thin tree branches for drum sticks. In front of him was a big carton box. In lieu of clappers was an empty Tanduay bottle on the ground to his right. Left for him to imagine were the pedal and the bass drum.

From what little I was told, I conjectured that his time with the military had left him scarred. "Na-Warshock na siya, 'day." But, 'Nong Roj added, his musical skills had earned him his previous position in the military band. He had always loved music. Now, without a means of livelihood and only a portion of his sanity spared, he is left with nothing but wine and song.

I tested his memory and sang the first few bars of “Smoke On the Water.” Bam-bam-baaaaam, bam-bam-badaaaaam, bam-bam-baaaaaam, bam-badum. And then, upon recognizing the song, he immediately rocked his carton box: tugTAK-tugTAK!

We sang in time with his drums as he banged his way through music from the past few decades. He remembered where the drum rolls fit, flashing a genuine smile at people who sang to fill the gaps where the lyrics or the hooky guitar riffs should be. I think my break may have gone beyond the usual fifteen minutes. It was fun to sing as loudly as they did on a random weekday afternoon. Beatles. Deep Purple. Pink Floyd. Journey. Frank Sinatra. If you sang it, he knew it (he didn't remember titles. You had to sing it and he’d join in as soon as he recognized it.) While we were cruising through “Ventura Highway,” he yelled: Bahala’g wa’y kuwarta! Bahala’g wa’y kuwarta! Bahala’g wala’y kuwarta!

"No matter that we are penniless."

That was the only time I heard him speak. But along with his music, it was his joyous laughter that filled the street corner.

Passersby looked on with passive interest at our motley crew. This decrepit old man had more passion over a box and a bottle than any of our most fervently loyal employees. His small space looked like an abyss where the jaded toss discarded dreams, and he was just trying to keep them alive down there.

By the time I was leaving work to head down to my favorite watering hole one short jeepney ride away, he was still playing well into the sunset for himself and his friends, with a fresh bottle of Tanduay lapad.

March 25, 2025 Quezon City

When we moved to this new place in December of 2023, I met a neighbor whose home is a kariton. Nong Toto was his name. It was his dog that started our acquaintanceship. During those days when I cooked more often, I would frequently walk to the stores to buy vegetables and other ingredients, and along my route was the street corner where he parked his kariton: a small garden lining the perimeter of what looks to be a rich person's house barricaded with high walls. I would stop to greet both of them, and ask Manong Toto how they were. Small talk with a neighbor. He would usually tell me about his dog. I would sometimes buy some canned goods to give to Manong Toto, before stopping at a nearby pet store to get a bag of inexpensive dog food for his pet, and hand over the bag of goods to them on my way back home, not without a bit more of small talk. Seldomly, I would find him in the evenings with a bottle of Red Horse or two, and never anything more than that. Gamay nga kalipayan, he would say. "Small joys."

Once, he told me he'd met my mother, who walked the same route to church on Sundays or first Fridays of each month. It was she who told me that Manong Toto is a Negrense, and hails from Victorias. Incidentally, part of my maternal side of the family hails from that place as well. Since then I would practice with him what little Hiligaynon I know each time I met him.

He adopted a second dog, but lost his first one shortly after, during one of the typhoons that came by last year. He surmised that it might have been rescued by some kind-hearted person (apparently I am not the only one who occasionally brings them dog food and canned goods. It's a comforting thought). At least that's what we both hoped for.

About three weeks ago, I went to bring him a new bag filled with plastic bottles and cans that he would sometimes ask for, because he said he could sell them. I tried twice in that same week, but I didn't catch him. 

He was the one who had tamed and tended to that small garden for the whole year since we moved here. It's now growing scraggly and unkempt. I didn't even get his last name.

March 25, 2025
Quezon City

He was often asleep, but would wake up to be the first to greet me at the gate each time I came home from wherever it was I had to go to, if he had any strength that day. He was already here when we first moved, and I didn't know for how long he had been living in our compound. All I was told by our land lady (a kind woman named Michelle) was that he was a stray cat who decided to make this compound his home one day, and that they had simply allowed him here, and that eventually they'd named him Tiger. Ever since, he would be fed and given water regularly as the community cat. Some neighbors in our compound did the same, and I took to doing that as well. He guarded the place from rodents, and I knew that because occasionally, I would find a dead rat lying outside.

He was a large orange tabby cat, but sickly and old, so I took to calling him "Nyor," short for "senyor." Funnily, he would respond to it, perhaps responding more to my voice and my presence than to the nickname I gave him.

He sneezed frequently, and I'd do my best to get out of the way when he did because I have two indoor cats that I cannot afford to take to the vet at the moment should they get sick (I ran out of savings after my father died and had to take my mother to live with me here for almost a year).

Eventually, I bought vitamins and eye drops for him and another stray-cum-adopted cat that I call Mimim -- a gray tabby and white female. Because Mimim isn't spayed, she had several kittens over the course of the year, kittens that I helped to nurse as best as I could (some I suspect were fathered by Nyor). Unfortunately they all died, either from illness or from being run over by cars.

Some time late last year, I got depressed, and did not venture outside our front door for God knows how long. When I finally had the energy for to step out, Tiger wasn't there. I thought he'd just gone out to do his usual rounds around the neighborhood, as cats usually do if they're not kept indoors 24/7.

Experts say that when cats feel like their time is coming to an end, they hide away from the world without notice.

I think the last thing I said to him was "Hello, 'Nyor!" Some days, I still imagine Nyor Tiger getting up to greet me whenever I step out of the house. 

One day, about three weeks ago, I heard a tiny thing meowing from behind discarded plywood leaning against the wall of the garage, but it would keep silent whenever I called out to it. A few days later, it showed itself, but would hide should any human approach it. The only reason we're friends now is because once, it was so hungry so I gave it some food. Now, he's the one who greets me at the gate each time I come home, food or no food.

He's a tiny orange kitten of about four or five months by my estimates. I'm still figuring out what to call him.

Perhaps I'll call him Nyor.

July, 2010
Cebu City

On the same day that Amber, our officemate, died, the management of JY Square Mall cut down the tree where I used to sit down to smoke and talk with the habal-habal drivers and the cigarette vendors about politics and the news on the papers that they sold (“Bisan’g kinsa pa na’ng prisidinteha, Inday, mao ra gihapo’ng pliti,” quipped one driver once. "Whichever President wins the seat, the jeepney fares will remain the same"). But during that fifteen minute break, my afternoon haunt was devoid of the usual personalities. I smoked one stick while counting the rings on the poor stump together with another co-worker: 27 rings, or thereabouts, if we counted correctly. Just about as old as Amber was. 

The brown on the bark was a dying color, unlike the other trees lining the Salinas-Gorordo street side that, albeit lethargic-looking, were still breathing. Perhaps watching the people go about their business. Perhaps exasperated by the indifference of cars with darkly tinted windows, enduring the poison from their carbon monoxide fart. Perhaps wishing they were in some other jerkwater, peaceful place up in Busay feeding on better nutrition. Perhaps still trying to accept the lot that fate has handed to them – to settle for that piece of earth underneath the concrete on Salinas Drive. Perhaps like the mindless and crazy taong grasa who visits the Salinas side walk, swaying happily in smog.

But as I sat on the stump breathing heavy from the smoke of my smoldering cigarette -- brown and dead -- the trees, though still very much alive, could not offer comfort. The sun hurt spots where there used to be shade; the daily banter had been scattered to different places – near the talipapa, or the sari-sari store across the street. Simply put, it wasn't the same as yesterday.

After playing spot-the-difference between mental pictures from previous days and the more tangible scene in front, I left, knowing I will no longer return. Perhaps I may find some other nearby spot with a different lot of people, a different cigarette vendor, a different kind of chatter.

The tree was dead. And so was Amber. On that same day, we, the living, breathing ones were forced to find comfort elsewhere, and left the places and the hours where we found Amber, knowing we could not return.